


LEAH

by Anne_Fairchild



Category: Vienna Blood (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Family Drama, Gen, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:43:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anne_Fairchild/pseuds/Anne_Fairchild
Summary: There is more to the visible tension and snark between Max and his sister than appears on the surface.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	LEAH

**Author's Note:**

> Set after episodes 5&6, so small possible spoilers. The relationship between Max and his sister interests me. This kind of came out of nowhere and wanted me to write it. I also love the relationship between Max and his father, so maybe ...

Max’s steps slowed as he neared his home. Being around his family these days brought him no comfort, only the unhappy feeling of not meeting their expectations or not being the good son or the stable, respectable brother he should be. The adult in him, as well as the trained psychoanalyst, understood that as a grown man in the new century he did not owe it to his family to marry someone he didn’t love in order to please them, nor was he obligated to live his life or choose a career to please them. It sounded so wise, so strong and positive to say those things. As the only son in a close and loving traditional Jewish family, however, he was confronted with the reality that not measuring up, and being aware of it much of the time he was with his family, was not something easy to ignore or overcome. He didn’t like feeling sad or apprehensive to walk in the door, wondering who would chastise him for what or express worry or disappointment over his choices. He loved his family very much, knew that they loved him too, and the estrangement depressed him.

He slipped in quietly and went straight to his room. He was out of sorts, knew it, and knew it was best if he spoke to no one. He didn’t think he could take the disapproval tonight without expressing emotions that would only make things worse. If deep inside he knew he _was_ loved, he didn’t _feel_ the love much any more.

As he turned on the light, he saw that something had been placed on his bed. Curious, he advanced to look at it. He picked it up - and sat down in wonder to examine it more fully.

It was a waistcoat. A beautifully, skillfully embroidered waistcoat in shades of gold on black. Subtle rather than ostentatious, rich and classic and speaking of style and fashion without speaking too loudly. It was exactly the sort of thing he liked. There was only one person who would have paid attention to his tastes to know this, and only one person who had the skill to make it. Leah.

Strange that she would do this, he thought. She was the most brutal in her honesty, the most direct, seeing straight to the heart of his confusions and conflicts. The one who accepted no excuses, who expected him to know what was right. The one who was the angriest and most scornful over his broken engagement, while his parents were merely sad, and embarrassed in the community.

Perhaps it was some sort of thank-you for his help with Daniel. Leah lived for her son, loved him perhaps a little obsessively. He and Daniel had always understood each other, and they’d grown a little closer still after the events at St Florian’s. The boy had no father. An uncle was better than nothing, Max supposed, so he’d stepped up. Daniel needed someone he could talk to. Within the family, Max no longer had that.

It had been his father once, until Max had chosen to follow Professor Freud’s teachings, and become unengaged to Clara. Then there was the growing unrest in the city, the increase in anti-Jewish feeling which his father had not yet felt as keenly as he had and didn’t feel it was the threat Max knew it to be. They spoke as father and son, but couldn’t speak man to man.

Before his father, Max remembered with a sad smile, it had been Leah who’d been his confidante, his teacher, and his support when he was a young boy; Leah who had in fact been his mother. There had been a time in Max’s life when his mother had simply stopped mothering them - him, Hanna and Leah. It wasn’t acknowledged or spoken of even now. Max didn’t know if she’d gone through a depression about something, had had an affair, some sort of breakdown, or what it had been. Perhaps she’d wanted to leave them. She was always busy with social and charity work then, scarcely at home. The only person who knew for certain would be his father.

It had been Leah who made sure he ate, bathed, dressed for school, did his homework, and who had talked to him, hugged him, taught him proper behaviour, and made him feel loved. He hadn’t appreciated it properly, he realized, until much later, after she had married and left them.

It had all been too much, all at once. Hanna becoming ill and dying, with nothing they could do. The family’s terrible pain with his own grief acutest of all. The shock had brought his mother back to them, but they were older then - Max in his last year of school before university, Leah being courted and then married. When his mother reappeared as an authority figure at that point, neither he nor Leah was really accepting. Max was off to university and Leah simply left after her wedding.

When Leah returned a widow, Max was away at medical school. Leah had made peace of a sort with their mother, and Daniel’s needs came first. When Max returned home, he and Leah were strangers to each other. He was grown, and resented her attempts to boss him; she was disgruntled that he no longer listened to her. At some point, she formed a strong attachment to Clara Weiss.

Leah was happy when Max and Clara began seeing each other, less so of course when their relationship didn’t progress. Her pushing, as well as their mother’s, for Max to announce their engagement came at a bad time. Max was becoming more and more involved in Professor Freud’s work and less happy with his work at the hospital under Doctor Gruner, who Max believed was both a dinosaur and a sadist as well as having no use or respect for Jews. Max felt trapped at the hospital. Leah had little idea of or exposure to what was happening to foreigners in Vienna.

When Oskar entered his life, he and the police work gave Max’s life more meaning and purpose, more happiness, than he’d felt for some time. Of course, both Oskar and the work took him away from respectability and Clara, and no one in the family was happy about that. So he and by extension Oskar bore the brunt. The broken engagement had been the last straw.

It had felt good to be able to help with Daniel. Max supposed Leah might be grateful, hence this lovely gift. With more than a little trepidation, he went in search of his sister to thank her.

The house was silent, his parents not in evidence, his father’s study door closed. It was past the dinner hour. Daniel resided at his new school during the week. For all Max knew, Leah herself might be out and he was alone in the house except for the cook and the maid.

There was a light in the sitting room, however, and Max approached it. Leah sat on the sofa reading, some embroidery sitting next to her on the table. She looked up when his shadow fell across the doorway.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.” His throat was dry.

“Max.” She smiled at him - a genuine smile. “Come and sit with me, please. Will you pour me a sherry, and something for yourself? And perhaps shut the door?”

Max’s heart sank. Why was she being so pleasant to him? The shut door did not bode well. He sighed, entered the room and closed the door behind him.

“Have mama and papa gone out?” he asked as he moved to the liquor cabinet.

“They’re having dinner with the Schoenfelds, with cards afterwards.”

“Were you not invited?” Max asked, handing Leah her sherry.

“I was, but I know very well it was only out of kindness. I’m not quite that desperate yet. Sit,” she invited, patting the sofa beside her.

“Why don’t you go out with Clara and your other friends, as you always have?” Of course, Max knew part of the answer to that. He sat, sipping at a brandy.

“Because I’m no longer invited.”

“I’m sorry. I really am sorry, Leah,” Max sighed. “I hadn’t thought Clara would behave so. I thought you were good friends,” he puzzled.

“So,” Leah answered softly, “did I. But I was wrong. I blamed you, I was angry with you, yes. But it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault. I should have known better from the beginning.” Her smile was regretful, and sad.

“I was twenty-six years old when I came here with Daniel. But my life was filled with only two things - grief, and my son. I didn’t live as the young woman I was. When you met Clara I had begun to want what I’d never had in all the years since - friends, parties, pretty dresses, and gossip. Places to go, people to be with, and things to do. But I’m not twenty-six any longer, I’m thirty-six. Clara befriended me because I was your sister, and the others are her friends. There would be no other reason such young, unmarried or newly married women would want to be friends with me. To them I’m merely an old, rather grim and stolid widow with a handsome younger brother and nothing else to recommend me,” she finished honestly.

Max was both horrified and angry on her behalf. He’d always sensed Clara’s shallowness, but this was a cruelty he wouldn’t have believed of her.

“Oh my Leah, I’m so sorry. It’s not right-“ Max moved closer and put an arm around her.

“It’s not so much right or wrong as human nature, and it’s not your fault, Maxie.”

Max lay his head on her shoulder and put his arms around her.

“How many years since you called me that? No one else ever has.”

“Since I left home. It’s been just as long since I was ‘my Leah,’ “ she reminded him, kissing his brow.

“I’ve missed you, and the way things used to be between us. But we can’t go back, no one can,” Max sighed, leaning hard against his sister as he had when he was eight years old and frightened or sad. Clearly, he wished it _were_ possible to recapture the past. Leah put both of her arms around him and held him tightly, exactly as she had so many years ago.

“I don’t know what I would have done..what would have become of me, if you hadn’t been there for me and Hanna. You always knew what to say and what to do. You never scolded me unless I deserved it, and I always felt safe in your love. I would have been lost without you,” Max murmured against her breast. The feel of her arms around him was bringing back all the good, the positive memories.

“Oh Max,” Leah whispered. He realized she was crying. “I never knew. I did my best, but I never really knew if it mattered.”

“It did.”

“You were such a quiet, sensitive child. You needed love.”

“I still am, and I still do, even if I’m a man now,” he told her.

“And such a man. I might have lost Daniel forever if not for you. He might even have tried to kill himself. Thank God for my Maxie grown into a wise man, and your inspector.”

Max’s heart sped up suddenly.

“My inspector? You mean Inspector Rheinhardt?”

“Yes. Your inspector. The reason you and Clara broke off your engagement. ‘Who is she?’ Clara told me she demanded of you, and you didn’t answer because you couldn’t. ‘Do you love her?’ she asked you too, and you said you didn’t know - only, you did.”

“Leah...”

“If you could see your face, when you are off to meet with him or you have just come from being with him. Remember, who knew you - who knows you - better than anyone?” Leah teased gently.

“You don’t mind?”

“As much of my life as I have lived so far, if I have learned anything, it’s never to deny love, to push it away or reject it. It might never come again. We never know what life has in store for us. If it makes you happy - if _he_ makes you happy, why should God be angry. And if He is, well, let him try to live in this world without love, as some of us have to do,” Leah responded firmly.

“My amazing sister,” Max smiled. “My sweet Leah. Thank you. And you _are_ loved. I have always loved you and always will, even when I thought you were angry with me. There are no words to tell you how proud I am of you, and how in awe I am of your courage in making peace between us.”

“The mistake was mine, and it was mine to fix. So if you are unhappy now, you’ll come to me?”

“If you’ll come to me with your worries - about Daniel or anything else.”

“I will.”

“I’ve missed you so much. We,” Max grinned at his sister, “are going to the opera next week, with dinner before. And the week after that, the new Klimt opening. And after that, a concert. Every week there will be something, I promise.”

Leah looked at him, bit her lip, and then smiled in return.

“I should protest, say no, and believe that you’re offering out of obligation or pity, to be kind. But even if you were I would say yes, because I’ll enjoy going out with you and we’ll have a good time, won’t we? No expectations and no one to please or impress but ourselves.”

“But you don’t really believe that’s why I-“ Max frowned, uncertain.

“No darling, I don’t. Honestly,” she assured him. “Thank you. It will be lovely. I’m looking forward to it.”

“You might even meet someone.”

“I might. But I would rather think of that when Daniel is a little older, perhaps at university.”

“Understood, mama.” Max smiled. “Would you mind if occasionally - only occasionally, mind you - Oskar came as well?”

“To be escorted by _two_ handsome men? Of course I wouldn’t mind.”

“You have taken such a heaviness from my heart,” Max sighed, kissing Leah on the cheek, and also kissing her hand.

“I know. I’ve seen it in your face, in your posture, and I became ashamed of myself. I knew I had to speak to you.”

“Let’s just be happy now, in the lives we have, as the people we are.” Max rose and brought Leah a new glass of sherry and poured himself another brandy. He touched his glass to hers. “ _L’chaim,”_ he smiled.

“ _L’chaim,”_ Leah echoed, tucking her arm into her brother’s.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a mix of series and books. In the books, Max has a living younger sister named Hanna who was only a little older than his nephew Daniel is in the series. Since she isn’t in the series, I made use/mention of her this way.


End file.
